City of London (Various Powers) Bill [HL]

I am again grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Myners, for lending colour to the debate, but I do think that his latest suggestion is actually outside the immediate terms. Before leaving street trading, I should refer briefly to other local legislation on street trading before the House and the Government’s recent response to the consultation on modernising street trading and pedlar legislation. I know that this is of particular interest to my noble friend Lord Lucas. The conclusion reported in the response that the services directive applies to the retail sale of goods, including pedlary and street trading, will undoubtedly impact on the other private promotions relating to street trading which seek to impose or tighten existing regimes. However, the issues considered in the response do not impact on this Bill, which is moving in the opposite direction and seeking to facilitate trading that is currently prohibited. I have come to my final remarks. The Bill also addresses two small deficiencies in the statutory regime governing the City’s walkways, which are paved areas dedicated by developers for public access. The first change enables the City to recover its costs from developers for resolutions relating to walkways as it can when dealing with other applications to vary rights of passage. The second would facilitate the civil enforcement of parking offences on walkways, bringing them into line with arrangements on the highway. This is a modest Bill containing a number of small but important provisions relating to the specific circumstances of the City. I therefore ask noble Lords to give the Bill a Second Reading.